Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. Downward Causation: an Opinionated Introduction Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it Downward causation is a widespread and problematic phenomenon. It is typically defined as the causation of lower-level effects by higher-level entities. Downward causation is widespread, as there are many examples of it across different sciences: a cell constraints what happens to its own constituents; a body regulates its own processes; two atoms, when they are appropriately related, make it the case that their own electrons are distributed in certain ways. However, downward causation is also problematic. Roughly, it seems to be at odds with specific scientific and/or epistemological desiderata: first and foremost, that everything can be reduced (one day or another) to the fundamental, micro-physical constituents and goings-on of the universe, so as to provide a unified explanation of everything and a unification of all the sciences “from the bottom”. Indeed, downward causation (if it is an irreducible phenomenon) introduces special causings not only at the higher levels, but also at the lower ones: if, in principle, we cannot fully understand what happens to the electrons without paying attention to the atoms (at the higher level), and we cannot fully understand what happens to the atoms by only paying attention to the electrons (at the lower level), there is no fully lower-level explanation for both higher-level and lower-level goings-on. In this introduction, we shall try to describe the prospects for downward causation in metaphysics and the philosophy of science. After having delved into the connections between downward causation, emergence and levels (§1), we shall discuss the irreducibility of downward causation (§2). We shall then briefly consider how specific metaphysical and epistemological assumptions bear on our understanding of downward causation and of its possibility (§3) and describe some views according to which downward causation is actually non-causal (or it is a somehow special causal relation) (§4). We shall also mention some problems for the connection between downward causation and mental causation (§5) and some scientific examples of downward causation (§6). Finally, we shall summarize the contents of the contributions in this book (§7). 1. Downward Causation, Emergence, and Levels. Downward causation is commonly linked to emergence: an entity acting as a downward cause is an emergent entity, and vice versa. There are many different and competing views of emergence. For some authors, emergence is a merely epistemic phenomenon: something emerges from some other thing, roughly, if and only if the former is not predictable from the latter. However, a prominent view of emergence takes it to be something real in the universe. For it seems that there must be something in the universe that makes it the case that an emergent phenomenon (even the existence of an emergent entity) is not predictable from other phenomena - where the unpredictability is not merely due to the epistemic limits of human beings. Thus, emergence is a real phenomenon. What sort of phenomenon? It is possible to distinguish here between two degrees of emergence. Following Bedau (1997), there is weak emergence whenever one needs to adopt special methods in order to predict something from some other things. Such special methods are motivated by certain objective features of the entities involved. For example: we should need to take into consideration certain special relations between entities (and certain special laws involving those relations) in order to predict the behaviour of a system constituted by those entities. On the contrary, there is strong emergence whenever a certain higher-level entity possesses (or confers) certain irreducible causal powers, i.e., whenever it is 2 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. causally responsible for certain happenings that cannot be (only) due to the lower-level entities on which the former is taken to depend1. For example: certain mental properties could confer special and irreducible causal powers, besides the ones conferred by other properties on which they depend (e.g., neural properties). Insofar as downward causation is taken to be an irreducible phenomenon, it can only be connected with strong emergence. For weakly emergent phenomena can be fully explained in lower-level terms, even if one needs to adopt special methods. In addition, Kim (1999) has tried to demonstrate that strongly emergent entities must confer (or possess) downward causal powers. Indeed, the only way for a strongly emergent entity to cause a certain higher-level effect is by causing the lowerlevel phenomena on which the latter depends. For example: in order for pain to cause a specific volition, it must cause the instantiation of the neural properties on which that volition depends. Kim’s arguments can be questioned. Moreover, if strong emergence and downward causation are essentially connected, they seemingly turn out to be interdefinable. A strongly emergent entity is one that confers/has downward causal powers, i.e., powers to be exercised with respect to the lower-level entities. Yet, a downward causal power is one that belongs to an entity of a higher, strongly emergent level and that can cause something at the lower levels. Downward causation is invoked to define emergence and emergence (“emergent levels”) is invoked to define downward causation. Such definitions make both notions unanalyzable, as we need downward causation in order to analyze emergence and emergence in order to analyze downward causation. If this is to be avoided, levels must be defined without invoking emergence. At a first glance, one could invoke constitution relations2: if something constitutes some other thing directly (i.e., without constituting some further thing that constitutes the latter), then the former belongs to a certain level l and the latter belongs to a proximate higher-level l+1. Some questions are in order: since there are many ways (from an epistemic standpoint) to carve nature at its joints, what makes it the case that some of them are more “legitimate” than others? Moreover, if we accept the Principle of Unrestricted Composition, all sets of entities turn out to constitute further entities3. Thus, what makes it the case that some constituted entities are more “relevant” than others? Do all the “relevant” constituted entities have downward causal powers? What are the levels of constitution in the universe, both within sciences and across sciences? Finally, the ontology of levels itself has been recently criticized (Heil (2012)). Such problems are still open and there is no easy solution to them. On the contrary, it seems that, for many years, the connection between downward causation, emergence and levels was taken for granted as an unproblematic phenomenon and levels were mostly understood in an intuitive way, by simply paying attention to constitution and the distinctions between sciences. 2. The Irreducibility of Downward Causation. Kim (1999) presents an argument against the irreducibility and novelty of downward causation that will be examined in some of the contributions. It rests on the idea that an emergent property and its lower-level, emergence base are both nomologically sufficient (i.e., sufficient given the actual laws of nature) for the production of the lower-level effect. In turn, this idea is motivated in two different ways. In Kim (1999), nomological sufficiency is taken to be a transitive relation: if a lower-level emergence base is nomologically sufficient for a higher-level emergent property See also van Gulick (2001) and O’Connor, Wong (2015). See O’Connor, Wong (2015). 3 See Varzi (2016). 1 2 3 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. (given that the latter emerges from the former according to certain laws of nature) and the higherlevel emergent property is in turn nomologically sufficient for the lower-level effect (given that causation implies nomological sufficiency), then the emergence base is nomologically sufficient for the lower-level effect too. In other places (e.g., Kim (2005)), the emergence base is nomologically sufficient for the production of the lower-level effect if they are both (micro)physical and the principle of the causal closure of the (micro-)physical realm is true. This principle asserts that every (micro-)physical effect has a wholly sufficient (micro-)physical cause, which can be identified here with the emergence base. At any rate, in both cases, downward causation turns out to be “redundant”: the lower-level entities are causally sufficient for all the lower-level effects. There are three ways to comply with Kim’s arguments: (i) accepting them and holding that downward causation is actually reducible; (ii) rejecting their assumptions (first and foremost, the principle of the causal closure of the (micro-)physical); (iii) accepting their assumptions and finding a different role for downward causation. If we choose (i), downward causation turns out to be a rather uninteresting phenomenon. Yet, if we choose (ii), we need to demonstrate that there are causal gaps at the (micro-)physical level of the universe: gaps which can only be filled by non-(micro-)physical entities. More radically, we also need to ask: why should we accept the principle of the causal closure of the (micro-)physical realm? Brian McLaughlin (1992) and David Papineau (2000) hold that, if there are non-(micro)physical causes operating at the (micro-)physical level, such causes must introduce special physical forces and/or violate the principles of the conservation of energy and momentum. Thus, it is reasonable to hold that there are only (micro-)physical causes of (micro-)physical effects. Among others, Sophie C. Gibb (2010) has tried to demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case. Scott Sturgeon (2003) has argued that quantum physics is actually compatible with there being causal gaps at the (micro-)physical level. But even if this is so, the next question is: can all cases of downward causation be accounted for by simply acknowledging such (micro-)physical causal gaps?4 Eventually, those who adopt (iii) either claim that downward causation actually is a noncausal relation (see section §4) or that downward causation has special sorts of relata as causes and/or effects. For example: the causal closure principle is taken to concern (micro-)physical events, both qua causes and qua effects. Yet, in irreducible cases of downward causation, there could be different sorts of causes and/or effects at work. For example: agents qua substances could be responsible for downward, mental causation; facts instead of events could be the relevant lowerlevel effects (Lowe (2000)). Two problems are left open. First, these assumptions about special causes and/or effects should be accommodated within a general metaphysical theory of causation. Inter alia, such a theory should try to settle whether there are many different forms of causation (e.g., event causation, fact causation, etc.). Secondly, since the causal closure principle can be rephrased so as to encompass these forms of causation and the special entities that they involve, it must be shown that the relevant reformulations of the principle are less justified than the original formulation in terms of events. In addition to Kim’s arguments, there are also some empirical concerns about the irreducibility of downward causation, due to the idea that downward causation can be replaced by special, lowerlevel phenomena. For example: mechanisms are taken to be lower-level structures of entities and activities that are meant to explain certain peculiar effects in biology and the neurosciences – 4 For a theory of mental causation in quantum terms, see Stapp (2009). 4 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. phenomena that one might have otherwise interpreted as due to downward causation5. More generally, reductionists could grant that certain lower-level entities cause specific lower-level effects only if they stand in peculiar arrangements. Such arrangements could then replace higherlevel causes. However, the reductions provided by such strategies are successful only if the lowerlevel “surrogates” of higher-level causes depend in no way on the higher level. Otherwise, the reductionist project would fail. If we still needed the higher-level entities in order to single out their relevant “surrogates” (e.g., if we still needed mental properties in order to single out their relevant neural “surrogates”), there would be at least a conceptual problem for the reductionist project: the higher level would not actually turn out to be redundant6. 3. Downward Causation and the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Causation. We have seen that one strategy for dealing with the problems of irreducible downward causation consists in changing its relata. For example, it has been recently suggested that one should adopt a process ontology in order to allow for both emergence and downward causation. Such a process ontology would also be more compatible with the scientific picture of the fundamental level of the universe7. Yet, a more radical question about causation emerges: what is it for something to cause some other thing? According to some philosophers, physical causation is the transmission of some conserved physical quantity, such as energy8. If this is the only form of causation, irreducible downward causation turns out to be very problematic: in order for it to be irreducible, it must introduce some novel form of energy or change the amount of energy at the lower level. However, we are neither forced to admit that physical causation is the only form of causation, nor that any physical effect is brought about by changing some conserved quantity such as energy. It is also worth asking what one means by “physical effect”. On the one hand, a physical effect could be anything involving some physical entity/-ies. On the other hand, it could be the instantiation of a physical property/relation (i.e., of a property/relation typically studied by physicists) by some physical entity/-ies9. On the latter view of physical effects, it might well be the case that all the instantiations of physical properties/relations imply the problematic changes of conserved quantities10. Yet, on the former view (i.e., that a physical effect could be anything involving some physical entity/-ies), not all the physical effects are in principle characterized by those problematic changes. For example, if some physical entities turned out to be structured in certain ways and the structures did not change the conserved quantities, then the relevant physical structures would be unproblematic physical effects. Moreover, causation is often taken to be diachronic and based on some law(s) of nature: something causes some other thing (if and) only if the former is spatio-temporally contiguous with the latter, and preceding it, and there is some law of nature connecting the former with the latter. This view has been questioned in several ways. We shall only mention two alternative theories that bear on the possibility of irreducible downward causation. 5 See Craver (2007) and Bechtel (2008). See also Vicente (2013). 7 See Bickhard, Campbell (2000), Bickhard, Campbell (2011), Seibt (2009), Campbell (2015). 8 See for example Fair (1979), Castañeda (1980) and Dowe (2000). 9 If you do not want to claim that there are instantiations of properties understood as universals, you may appeal to entities that play an analogous role in your favourite ontology, such as physical tropes. 10 For some interesting counterexamples, see Collins (2008). 6 5 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. First, there is a different analysis of causation based on counterfactuals: something causes some other thing if and only if the latter would occur if the former occurred and the latter would not occur if the former did not occur11. As is well known, this rough formulation of the counterfactual theory of causation falls short of its target. It has troubles with preemption, transitivity, contextsensitivity and temporal asymmetry12. Moreover, what is the truthmaker for the modal analysans? David K. Lewis invokes possible worlds that are as real as the actual world, but most philosophers are inclined to reject his view. However, if the analysans had no truthmaker, it would be at best a good description of how we think of causation, i.e., of our concept of causation, with no corresponding real causal relation in the universe. Be that as it may, the counterfactual analysis of causation has been refined. A refinement of it (i.e., the interventionist theory of causation13) has been used to provide a response to Kim’s exclusion argument against irreducible mental causation14. We cannot summarize this response here. However, if successful, the response only shows that there is irreducible mental-to-mental causation (i.e., higher-level-to-higher-level causation). It does not concern mental-to-physical causation (i.e., downward causation). It would be interesting to develop the interventionist account of causation (as two of the papers in this book do) in order to meet the challenge of downward causation. Secondly, there are power-based theories of causation, which question many features of causal relations. Powers are sui generis entities. They are both characterized by their being directed towards certain manifestations (or towards certain manifestation-types) and by being such that their existence (or their being possessed by something) does not imply their activation. One could have the power to take a pill for her headache, even without taking that pill (i.e., even without activating that power). On these theories, causation primarily involves powers. It is either the activation of a power, or the joint activation of many powers. The activation could be due to the fact that some power meets its own manifestation partner and they thus activate each other (e.g., the power of a ball to break a glass meets the power of the glass of breaking, i.e., its fragility)15. Alternatively, it could be due to the fact that a certain threshold for the activation of some powers is reached and accordingly a change in a system results16. If powers are causal relata – or if they are at least involved in all causings – causation need not be diachronic or synchronic – at least if it is admitted that powers, unlike Kimian events, do not essentially occur at times. Moreover, causation is not a contingent relation: it is built into the nature of powers that they lead to certain manifestations – in certain circumstances. However, contingency is preserved insofar as powers do not necessarily exist – nor do they necessarily coexist with other powers leading to their activation. In this perspective, laws of nature “emerge” from powers: they are not added from the outside to the causal relata (e.g., to events). The acceptance of a power-based theory of causation could ground the possibility of both emergence and irreducible downward causation. Some of the papers in this book develop this idea. 4. Downward Causation as Non-Causal. 11 See, among others, Lewis (1973). See Menzies (2014). 13 See for example Woodward (2003). 14 See Woodward (2003), (2008), (2015), Menzies and List (2009), (2010), Shapiro (2010). 15 See Martin (2008). 16 See Mumford, Anjum (2011). 12 6 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. An alternative way to allow for irreducible downward causation is by making it a non-causal relation – or at least a special causal relation. In the recent literature, there are at least four examples of this strategy. First, higher-level entities could select the powers to be activated at the lower level. What can happen at the lower level is wider than what actually happens. The higher-level entities are responsible for the selection of certain lower-level outcomes, rather than others, by making it the case that certain powers rather than others are activated17. Secondly, the higher-level entities could constrain what happens at the lower level, by imposing certain limits on the lower-level outcomes, by reducing the degrees of freedom of lower-level parameters, and so on18. Thirdly, the higher-level entities could structure the lower-level goings-on in specific ways, so as to generate specific outcomes19. Fourthly and finally, the higher-level entities could provide the lower-level entities with novel powers20. We cannot examine here such proposals in detail. It should at least be noticed, however, that they still have to provide examples of their application in science. Moreover, they have to face at least three difficulties. First of all, the relevant entities and the special relations invoked should be the “right” sort of entities standing in real top-down causal relations – or, more generally, in real relations of top-down influence. For if they were only explanatory principles, they would not be part of real goings-on: explanatory principles do not actually cause (or influence) anything; they just explain21. More importantly, the causal closure principle could be rephrased so as to rule out such solutions (e.g., by claiming that all lower-level causal powers are selected only by lowerlevel entities). Such reformulations, just like those discussed above, should then be exposed as less justified than the original formulation of the causal closure principle in terms of events. Finally, since some of the proposals mentioned in this section are compatible with the acceptance of a reductionist conception of downward causation and/or the rejection of strong emergence, one should still demonstrate that a non-reductionist conception of downward causation has to be favored over a reductionist one. 5. Downward Causation, Mind and Agency. Mental causation is the classical battlefield for reductionists and non-reductionists about downward causation. It has already been noticed above that Kim’s exclusion argument is also an argument against downward causation. More precisely, there is a version of that argument which threatens the possibility of irreducible mental downward causation: if mental properties are distinct from physical ones; if they have (by their being instantiated) lower-level, neural effects; if the lower level is causally closed; then, mental properties do not confer novel and irreducible downward causal powers. It is worth noticing that, unlike the original exclusion argument, this 17 See van Gulick (1993). Michael Polanyi (1969: 219-228) talked of both active and passive constraints on scientific experiments. See also Kistler (2009). For a non-strongly-emergentist view of constraining, see Wilson (2010), (2013). 19 See Sperry (1969), Emmeche, Køppe and Stjernfelt (2000) and El-Hani (2002). 20 See Gillett (forthcoming)’s relation of machresis. Other examples of non-causal influence (or of special causal influence) include the influence of absences (Deacon (2011)) and of lower-level properties to be put in special contexts (Murphy, Brown (2007)). 21 See Hulswit (2006). 18 7 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. argument does not need the “no overdetermination” premise. Even if there were benign overdetermination by mental properties with respect to neural effects, the former would not confer novel causal powers: benign overdetermination implies that the neural effects already have independent, neural causes. It is not possible to recall here all the responses to this argument – some of them will be considered in the contributions22. Yet, it is worth pointing out that not all the responses to Kim’s exclusion argument are also responses to the argument against irreducible downward causation. For some authors admit that mental properties are causally efficacious at the lower level (or they have at least an essential explanatory role), even if no novelty is introduced by their instantiation in the universe23. Beside Kim’s exclusion argument, philosophers of mind need to consider explanatory practices in the neurosciences. The mechanistic explanations mentioned in section 2 provide interesting counterexamples to irreducible downward causation. Moreover, according to Mossio, Bich, Moreno (2013), seemingly emergent and irreducible causal powers act as constraints. Yet, such powers are due to certain configurations in the emergence bases, which are nothing but specific conjunctions of intrinsic and relational properties. They also admit of configurations of configurations, i.e., “organizations”. In the end, in their picture, everything wholly depends on the lower level. There are even authors who claim that higher-level, emergent properties are lowerlevel properties placed within certain contexts24. Of course, as we already claimed, such strategies work only if the lower-level “surrogates” of the higher-level causes in no way depend on the higher level. An emerging field for the empirical study of irreducible downward causation is the study of adult neuroplasticity. If we could change our own brains without being determined to do so by other brain states, nor by states of the environment, it would be plausible to claim that we possess novel and irreducible downward causal powers. Unfortunately, there are still too few philosophical reflections on adult neuroplasticity. 6. The Science of Downward Causation. In the third part of this book, you will find contributions about scientific examples of downward causation. There is actually much research on the topic, even if downward causation is somehow left implicit. Indeed, many studies focus on emergence, rather than on downward causation. However, if the relevant emergent phenomena are strongly emergent and if the novel causal powers exercised by them are directed towards the lower level, then those phenomena can also be taken to involve irreducible downward causation. Here is a list of phenomena that could leave room for irreducible downward causation: 1. physics: quantum entanglement; high-temperature super-conductivity (Laughlin (2005)); the arrow of time (Loewer (2012)); the relationship between pressure, temperature and density in gas laws and molecular behaviour (Ellis (2012)); Rayleigh-Bénard convection (Bishop (2012)); 2. chemistry: symmetry breaking in virtue of configurational Hamiltonians (Hendry (2010)); the chirality of complex macromolecules; more generally, the structure of macromolecules; the structures of atoms and their micro-physical effects in establishing chemical bonds; 22 For a survey, see Robb and Heil (2013), Gibb (2014). For example, Heil (1992)’s and Robb (1997)’s solution, which identifies mental tropes with physical tropes. 24 See Murphy, Brown (2007). 23 8 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. 3. biology: feedback control systems; natural selection; homeostatic processes; eukaryotic cells; the D.N.A. code and the transcription of proteins; epigenome and the activation of genome (Davies (2012)); the behaviour of ants in colonies (Wilson and Hölldobler 1988) (see also Noble (2006)); 4. neurosciences: neural populations (Freeman (2000)); neural mechanisms; neuroplasticity in the development of synapses (through learning and other activities) (Doidge (2007)); intentions and brain activities; 5. psychology: perception of wholes (according to Gestalt theories); beliefs; consciousness and mental states; qualitative feels (emerging from interconnected representations of certain objects and affecting those same representations); conceptual representations (emerging from memories and affecting them); language and individual speakers; 6. sociology: social institutions; values; norms (Elder-Vass (2010)); education; the value of money. This list is far from being exhaustive. In order to single out cases of irreducible downward causation, there are some methodological steps to be followed. First, it is necessary to clarify the distinction between levels. Secondly, it is necessary to single out the irreducible downward cause and its lower level effect(s). Thirdly, if possible, one should define the downward causing mechanisms. Fourthly and finally, alternative lower-level explanations should be ruled out. Philosophers of science could play an essential role in clarifying the conceptual and ontological background of such research. For example: without providing adequate distinctions between levels, without clarifying the idea of constitution, without paying attention to the sorts of entities involved, without having in mind what causation is and why certain lower-level explanations should be accepted as adequate reductionist explanations and others should be rejected – without all this work, the empirical study of downward causation could easily turn out to be blind, or it could be guided by untutored intuitions or even prejudices of both scientists and philosophers. 7. The Contributions in this Book. This book is subdivided into three parts. The first one concerns downward causation and the metaphysics of causation. The second one delves into scientific examples of downward causation. The third and final part is about downward causation, mind and agency. We shall offer here a brief overview of the contributions. Part I. Downward Causation and the Metaphysics of Causation. In our own contribution “Three Grades of Downward Causation”, we outline Kim’s argument against irreducible downward causation and we then try to demonstrate that it crucially hinges on Kim’s view of causation and causal relata. Kim talks of causation in terms of spatio-temporal contiguity and nomological sufficiency. More importantly, he assumes that causal relata are “Kimian events”, i.e., events depending for their identity and existence on the objects, properties and times involved in them. With causal relata of other sorts things change and, we suggest, we can have three different grades of downward causation. A mild form of downward causation is grounded on tropes as causal relata: higher-level tropes could be identical with lower-level ones, even if they could belong to distinct types of tropes. In this respect, unlike Kim, trope theorists hold that there can be type distinctness (of higher-level and lower-level tropes) together with token identity. A stronger form of downward causation emerges if generic events are taken as causal relata: Stephen Yablo’s criterion of proportionality allows for higher-level, more generic, events to win their competition with lower-level, more specific ones in causing specific outcomes. 9 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. Finally, an even stronger form of downward causation can be based on the distinction between the possession and the activation of a power. In his “Downward Causation”, John Heil discusses the possibility of there being emergence and downward causation in the universe. The relevant form of downward causation examined by Heil is the one involving wholes and their own parts whenever the former influence the latter. The possibility of such phenomena rests on our ontological assumptions. For example, if we take emergence as introducing fundamental laws in the universe, then such laws must be nevertheless grounded on something (e.g., on an Aristotelian conception of laws, they would be grounded on powers). Moreover, it is not ontologically serious to claim that there are distinct properties of wholes just because there are predicates applying to wholes and not to their parts. Heil concludes that wholes are identical to their parts arranged in certain ways. This rules out distinct phenomena of downward causation, since parts’ arrangements provide sufficient truthmakers for claims about downward causings. In addition and more radically, if the universe itself were the only existing substance and all the familiar substances were only distinct modes of the universe, there would be no wholes at all (the modes of the universe would not be parts of it) and we would have to reconsider the nature of efficient causation itself. Max Kistler (“Higher-Level, Downward and Specific Causation”) examines downward causation from a different standpoint. He considers the interventionist account of causation, which allows for a way to answer Kim’s exclusion argument, as we have already seen. If one tries to adapt downward causation to this model, she is presented with two difficulties. First, she needs to refine the model. Secondly, there are no empirical grounds for claiming that a higher-level cause is responsible for a lower-level effect, instead of a corresponding lower-level cause. Kistler deals with these objections by proposing a model of specific (i.e., proportional) downward causation. Interventionist accounts of causation talk of causes and effects in terms of variables having certain ranges of values. For Kistler, both the higher-level variable M and its corresponding supervenience base P could be responsible for a further lower-level effect P’. Yet, if P is a multi-valued variable, whereas both M and P’ can only have two values that are correlated with one another (i.e., m+ is correlated with p’+ and m- is correlated with p’-), M is a more specific cause of P’ in comparison with P. For many different values of P can be correlated with one and the same value of P’, whereas there is a one-one correspondence between the values of M and P. Some further objections are also tackled by Kistler. Erasmus Mayr, in his “Powers and Downward Causation”, assesses Kim’s argument against downward causation from the viewpoint of an Aristotelian powers metaphysics. Kim’s framework is typically Humean in rejecting powers as fundamental properties, in claiming that events are causal relata and, more importantly, in admitting that processes are sequences of events that are not intrinsically connected with one another. Yet, on an Aristotelian powers metaphysics, not only are powers irreducible and crucially involved in causings, but they underlie specific manifestationprocesses (e.g., dissolving ice) – to be distinguished from the end-states that they aim at reaching (e.g., ice’s being dissolved). Mayr shows that it is possible to construct a Kim-style exclusion argument against the causal role of powers: since each stage in the manifestation process of some power P is responsible for the occurrence of each subsequent stage (together with specific background conditions), no irreducible causal role is seemingly left for P itself and its exercise. However, this argument overlooks one important feature of powers: that powers do not causally compete with the stages in their manifestation-processes. This leaves room for the possibility of 10 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. downward causation too – at least if the relevant powers and their stages are at different levels. Finally, Mayr deals with one response on behalf of the supporters of the exclusion argument. Rani Lill Anjum and Stephen Mumford (“Emergence and Demergence”) face three distinct challenges to strong emergence and downward causation: distinguishing between levels; providing a positive definition of those notions; avoiding epiphenomenalism. They then invite us to rediscuss our background assumptions about causation. On the authors’ view of causation, powers ground causings, causes and effects can be temporally extended and synchronous and causal phenomena result from the mutual manifestations of powers whenever they stand in specific relations. Wholes have distinct powers from those of their parts. When the parts become parts of specific wholes, they undergo radical qualitative changes: their natures change, so as to become the natures of parts of the relevant wholes. In virtue of these radical qualitative changes due to the wholes, the parts acquire novel powers – which is the phenomenon the authors name “demergence”. Eventually, they show that such a view of emergence and demergence is not only epistemic, it can be defined in positive terms, it introduces real and substantial novelty in the universe and does not threaten the causal closure of the physical realm. For the emergent wholes and phenomena are still physical, even if they do not belong to the basal, micro-physical level of the universe. Anna Marmodoro’s “Power Mereology. Structural Powers versus Substantial Powers” describes an original ontological framework based on powers. Powers are the building blocks of the universe and they are real, even when they are not active. There are transitive and intransitive powers: the latter are always active, whereas the former are activated in virtue of the interactions with other powers. Some manifestations of powers are complex, i.e., they result from the joint work of several powers that are structured in specific ways. Here Marmodoro introduces two important distinctions. First, physical structures of powers must be distinguished from metaphysical ones. Physical structures unite powers, but they do not change what those powers are. On the contrary, metaphysical structures unify powers and they re-individuate them, giving rise to emergent entities: the metaphysically structured powers become ways of being of the emergent entities. Secondly, structural powers are distinct from substantial powers: the former are the structured powers constituted by the (further) powers which give rise to emergent entities (e.g., for an electron, its spin, mass and charge); the latter are the powers which characterize the emergents. This framework provides a re-appraisal of both emergence and downward causation: there is topdown influence and downward emergence of the component powers when they are re-individuated by their wholes. Part II. Downward Causation and the Sciences. This part begins with a contribution by the physicists Stewart J. Clark and Tom Lancaster (“The Use of Downward Causation in Condensed Matter Physics”). In condensed matter physics, downward causation is often invoked in the mean field model. Roughly, studying fields according to that model, physicists need to average over very complicated microscopic interactions and, as a result of their approximations, they introduce coarse-grained, macroscopic variables. Such variables are then held responsible for downward causation. Another key concept (in the study of many-body systems) is renormalization. Renormalization is the process through which a system changes the properties of its own constituents. For example, renormalization leads to reconsider the nature of the particles within a system consisting of a set of interactions with other particles: the particles turn out to be very different (both quantitatively and qualitatively) in the system. The concept of a bare particle should then be replaced with the concept of a quasiparticle, i.e., a bare 11 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. particle taken together with the relevant interactions in a system. After having examined a number of examples, Clark and Lancaster extend their discussion to density functional theory. The prospects for downward causation are thus grounded on the imposition of boundary conditions and on approximations. This form of downward causation seems to be rather weak and only epistemic. Yet, they argue, it is not weak in its explanatory power. Robin F. Hendry, in his “Prospects for Strong Emergence in Chemistry”, argues that the scientific evidence for strong emergence in chemistry is at least as good as the evidence against it. Strong emergence is taken to be (or at least to imply) the in-principle failure to predict and explain everything in lower-level terms. Hendry argues that, even if contemporary physical chemistry succeeds in providing physical explanations for some chemical phenomena, this does not mean that strong emergence is absent in chemistry. First, he criticizes the idea that some chemical composites (e.g., water) can be just identified with and reduced to physical entities (e.g., H2O). He examines four alternatives for interpreting the sentence “water is H2O”. No alternative fully justifies the relevant identification. On the contrary, the physical constituents of water seemingly acquire the property of being water only by association, when the H2O molecules interact, and the populations of H2O molecules thus acquire novel powers. Reductionists cannot dispense with such powers a priori, since the whole discussion only concerns the a posteriori evidence for strong emergence. Secondly, he considers couples of isomers, which have the same Schrödinger equations and different molecular structures. The differences between them are accounted for by different Born-Oppenheimer equations, but only at the cost of introducing special parameters. Reductionists also have troubles when accounting for isomers’ symmetry. This suggests that micro-level equations and laws should be applied together with further higher-level information in order to provide full chemical explanations. After having presented his approach, Hendry anticipates and replies to three objections. Marta Bertolaso and Marco Buzzoni, in their “Causality and Levels of Explanation in Biology”, deal with two problems regarding mechanistic explanations in biology. Mechanistic explanations focus on mechanisms, i.e., as we have already claimed, structures of entities and activities. First, mechanistic explanations (together with mechanisms themselves) are context-dependent. Secondly, it is difficult to find a criterion for singling out different levels of mechanisms. The authors’ proposal is grounded on the agency theory of causation, to be distinguished from the manipulability or interventionist theory. Unlike the latter, the agency theory of causation centers on possible, free human interventions in order to explain causality. Causes are identified from our human explanatory standpoints, which also provide context-dependence. Levels and components have the same foundations. Yet, this does not imply that causal explanations are only subjective. On the contrary, one should recognize different levels of causality in the universe, i.e., she should be a pluralist about causation. Bertolaso and Buzzoni examine cancer research as a case study. They show that, in order to understand the mechanisms that produce cancer, it is necessary to adopt the aforementioned pluralistic approach and to look for such mechanisms at different levels – not only at the genetic one. Epigenetic and tissue factors become relevant. Luciano Boi, in his “The Interlacing of Upward and Downward Causation in Complex Living Systems. On Interactions, Self-Organization, Emergence and Wholeness”, argues for partly similar theses from the standpoint of systems biology. Systems biology focuses on complex living systems, to be defined in terms of openness and nonlinearity. Such systems self-organize through non-linear interactions and they thus give rise to emergent properties and behaviour. In order to understand them, it is necessary to stress the relevance of networks and functional activities and 12 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. to accept both upward and downward causation. More precisely, there is downward causation whenever some constraints are imposed to the lower level by the higher-level wholes when the latter are considered within their environment. Boi examines several examples taken from biology and genetics: the cooperative feedback inhibition of metabolic pathways involving lysine and aspartokinase, the failure of reductive genomic explanations, the role of chromatin structure in affecting binding genetic transcription factors, the possibility of the cell’s influencing its own DNA, the correlation between structure and function. In sum, there is increasing evidence that biology calls for two-way, non-reductionist explanations (i.e., explanations from the upper to the lower level and from the lower to the upper level). William Bechtel’s “Top-Down Causation in Biology and Neuroscience: Control Hierarchies” begins with the identification between controlled systems (i.e., processes that causally interact and together bring about some effect) and mechanisms. Within controlled systems, it is crucial to understand how control is exercised. Bechtel explains that something (i.e., a controller) controls a system by altering certain modifiable constraints. The altering activities are responsible for changes in the flux of free energy within the controlled system, so as to let the latter perform a certain work. The input by the controller, through which it alters the constraints, should be distinguished from the control process itself within the system. In general, the controllers are mechanisms that are composed of further mechanisms, i.e., the controlled sub-mechanisms. The distinction between levels of mechanisms is defined by using network representations. Within a network, each component mechanism is represented as a module, the component entities are nodes and the activities are edges. Given this theoretical framework, Bechtel introduces a number of examples of control mechanisms: negative feedback control, homeostasis, circadian clock mechanisms, neural control mechanisms in multi-cellular organisms. Especially in the last case, control mechanisms are used to coordinate the activities of the sub-mechanisms within organisms. François Jouen and Michèle Molina, in their “Early Complexity in Human Development”, outline two classical, rival approaches to explain human development and, more precisely, the origins of knowledge. On the former (the empiricist approach), the human mind roughly is a tabula rasa, which develops its own skills only through experience. However, some experiments in newborn infants show that they already possess certain perceptual and conceptual skills, allowing them to recognize perceptual constancy, size constancy and the permanence of objects. On the latter approach (the nativist one) newborn infants are already equipped with all their skills and predetermined for certain functions by adaptation and natural selection of the species. Among other things, this approach falls short of explaining why natural selection operates a posteriori on the species and a priori on individuals. Moreover, perceptual structures seemingly work also in non-fully-developed biological structures, as it has been shown by studying the behaviour of preterm infants. Afterwards, the authors introduce a third approach, i.e., the epigenetic one. On this approach, structures and functions influence one another: the activity of a function works as a feedback for the development of the structure and the development of the structure strengthens the function. The problem with the epigenetic approach lies in its not being able to determine the zero point of cognitive development. Be that as it may, it is suggested that a full understanding of cognitive development can only be reached by taking into account interactions between different levels: genes, structures and experience. Carl Gillett, in his “Scientific Emergentism and Its Move Beyond (Direct) Downward Causation”, develops some issues in scientific emergentism. By examining concrete scientific examples of compositional explanations, scientific emergentists argue that both composed entities and their 13 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. components exist and are determinative. The part-whole relations involved in compositional explanations have a certain number of distinctive features. For instance, their relata (i.e., wholes and their components) are working entities, and the components necessitate, and in some sense are the same as, the wholes. Moreover, such relations are mass-energy neutral and synchronous. These features do not characterize causal relations. Causal relations, for example, often involve exchanges of mass-energy and they are not synchronous. In addition, Gillett dwells on Craver (2007)’s interventionist account of causation. There are four conditions for an ideal intervention to figure in an adequate analysis of a causal relation. Gillett argues that at least one of such conditions cannot met by interventions on wholes with respect to their components. The upshot of the discussion is that wholes cannot causally influence their own components. Subsequently, Gillett introduces machresis as a more promising, downward non-causal determinative relation between a whole and its components. Through machresis, a property of a whole determines that the realizer properties of its parts contribute certain differential powers, i.e., certain powers that they would not contribute outside of that whole. Finally, the author explains that when we have machresis there are is another species of downward causation between a whole and the components of other wholes. Part III. Downward Causation, Mind and Agency. The first contribution in the final part of the book is by Sophie C. Gibb and it concerns “The Mental Causation Debate and Qua Problems”. Recall Kim’s exclusion argument. One way to allow for mental-to-physical causation is by identifying mental with physical causes. However, a problem arises: are the mental-physical causes efficacious qua mental or qua physical? This “qua problem” actually has two further aspects. First, mental-physical causes (where causes are taken to be property-instantiations) might be efficacious by having sui generis mental properties, i.e., by there being irreducibly mental properties of property-instantiations. Secondly, the mental properties involved in mental-physical causes might be identical with physical properties, but might have sui generis mental, second-order properties, i.e., mental properties of properties. Thus, in the end, there seem to be three distinct qua problems. The first problem (i.e., the one concerning the mental or the physical nature of the properties involved in the causes), argues Gibb, can be identified with the problem of the causal efficacy of mental causes, insofar as one accepts a view of causes as Kimian events, whereas the two remaining problems are only pseudo-problems. For we should neither accept that property-instantiations have properties (the only entities that have properties are substances), nor that there are properties of properties. Uwe Meixner, in his “Agent Causation – Neither Upward, Nor Downward”, challenges some assumptions about causation and the ontology of levels. Meixner does not think that events are the right sort of entities for having causal powers. On the contrary, monads (i.e., simple substances) or groups of monads are the only causes in the universe. Thus, the only form of causation is agentcausation, monads being conscious agents. Monads select the right events to be caused among event-possibilia and make them actual. Regarding the effects brought about by non-conscious causes, Meixner claims that they do not actually result from causation, but from nomological determination. There are three factors explaining what happens in the universe: agent-causation, nomological determination and chance. Meixner further argues that there are different ways of spatially partitioning the content of an event (e.g., a brainstate, which is the content of neural events). Such spatial partitionings ground levels. Yet, the partitionings neither imply that there are ontologically fundamental levels, nor that more finely partitioned levels are ontologically prior to 14 Francesco Orilia (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – orilia@unimc.it // Michele Paolini Paoletti (Università degli Studi di Macerata) – michele.paolinip@gmail.com In: Paolini Paoletti, M., Orilia, F. (eds.) (2017), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York. Routledge: 1-21. Please quote only from published version. the more coarsely partitioned ones. Finally, Meixner considers the various possibilities of an agent’s causing a physical event by causing its phases. Such causings are what really happens in cases of upward and downward causation. There actually is no proper upward nor downward causation in the universe. Simone Gozzano’s “The Compatibility of Downward Causation and Emergence” includes further criticisms of downward causation. The author assumes that a theory of emergence and downward causation should satisfy at least five desiderata, regarding the distinctive and robust causal roles of emergents and their having/conferring novel causal powers not deducible from the ones of the bases. He then argues that emergence and downward causation point to different directions, so that they are somehow incompatible: whereas emergence points to the autonomy of levels, downward causation stresses the possibility of having causal dependence across levels. Gozzano provides a definition of levels of properties which is grounded on properties’ being covered by fundamental or non-fundamental causal laws. He then shows that downward causation implies new fundamental causal laws. If downward causation is a widespread phenomenon, too many new fundamental laws are introduced in the universe. In turn, the distinction between levels runs into the risk of collapsing, together with the autonomy of levels which is required for emergence – and which is also necessary for downward causation itself. Gozzano also examines multiple realization frameworks and he finds in those frameworks the same difficulty that affects downward causation. The last contribution, “Three Views on Mental Downward Causation”, by Mario De Caro and Matteo Grasso, is a critical survey of the possibility of mental downward causation across different conceptions of causation. More precisely, the authors deal with Davidson’s anomalous monism, emergentism and the intentional causation view. On anomalous monism, events are taken both as causes and as primitive entities. All physical causes are identical with mental causes, but there are no mental-to-physical laws. De Caro and Grasso discuss two problems for this view. Later on, they focus on emergentism (especially on Baker’s and O’Connor’s theories). They claim that the major challenge for this doctrine comes from the difficulty of providing empirical evidence. Finally, they describe their own favoured theory: the intentional causation view, inspired by Anscombe’s and Putnam’s works. On this view, causation and explanation are interdependent relations. Since there are many irreducible ways of causally explaining what happens in the universe, there are also many irreducibly different causal relations. The acceptance of causal pluralism does not lead to subjectivism about causation. On the contrary, it implies the acceptance of a liberal ontology which does not postulate only the entities accepted by natural sciences, and recognizes that there are different levels of reality25. References Andersen, P. B., Emmeche, C., Finnemann, N. O., Christiansen, P. V. (eds.) (2000) Downward Causation. Minds, Bodies and Matter. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press Bechtel, W. (2008). Mental mechanisms. 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